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David Harris Oped featured in
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Dear John,
In his Politico Europe oped, AJC CEO David Harris, a decades-long
supporter of the European Union (EU) and the transatlantic
partnership, raises some troubling questions about European mixed
messaging towards the State of Israel, the memory of the Holocaust,
and the battle against antisemitism, The opportunity to speak publicly
to the European leadership through Politico, one of the two or three
most influential media outlets for European leaders, including
decision-makers in the EU, is particularly significant.
Best,
Kenneth Bandler
AJC Director of Media Relations
Europe Can't Fight Antisemitism While Ignoring Threats To Israel
Politico Europe
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By David Harris
December 14, 2020
Dear European Union, we have to talk about a major foreign policy
blind spot: your relations with Israel.
Countless times, I have heard European leaders, on commemorative
anniversaries and at memorial sites, express their anguish over the
Holocaust, the extermination of 6 million European Jews and the
fertile European soil that nurtured antisemitism over centuries. I
have heard them vow repeatedly, "never again."
I don't for a moment minimize these statements and gestures. To
the contrary, they are extremely important, all the more so as
antisemitism is again on the rise in Europe and knowledge of the
Holocaust declines.
But - and it's a big but - too many European leaders
are not connecting this painful past to present policies.
I was particularly struck by this when I was invited, in 2013, to be
one of six keynote speakers at a ceremony at Mauthausen, the infamous
Nazi concentration camp in Austria, where my cousin, Mila Racine, was
killed in the last weeks of the war.
The four speakers who preceded me - the presidents of Austria,
Hungary and Poland, and the speaker of the Russian parliament -
all invoked painful images of the war and the massive loss of Jewish
life. They made moving statements affirming their commitment to
remembrance and their opposition to any resurgence of hatred against
Jews.
Yet not one mentioned the word "Israel." Not one connected
the tragedy of the Holocaust to the absence of an Israel that, had it
existed, might have rescued and offered safety to countless European
Jews trapped on the Continent.
And not one noted that nearly half of the world's Jews today
live in Israel, which faces both military threats to its existence and
endless challenges to its legitimacy.
How can any leader speak about the lessons of the Holocaust and the
menace of modern-day antisemitism without reference to the ongoing
threats against Israel and the Jewish right to self-determination?
What happened that day at Mauthausen was not unusual. Indeed, it was
all too routine.
Every EU member country has bilateral ties with Israel, even if some,
like Greece and Spain, were decades late. And the EU itself has an
extensive network of links with Israel, including trade, research and
development.
But when it comes to the threats confronting Israel, more often than
not the EU is nowhere to be found. Sure, it might offer up the
occasional rhetorical flourish here or there about
"commitment" to Israel's security, but there will be
nothing concrete to back it up.
Take three revealing examples. On Iran, the EU has opted to ignore the
dire warnings of Israel (and Sunni Arab nations) about Tehran's
ambitions to sow chaos in the region, believing it has a better
understanding of the regime and how to contain the threat, including
bone-chilling calls for the annihilation of Israel.
But does it really? There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest it.
While others seek to disrupt the clandestine Iranian program to
develop weapons of mass destruction, the EU clings to the
deeply-flawed Iran nuclear deal - known as the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action - as a lifeline and its only real
hope.
Then there is Hezbollah. An Iranian proxy, its stated aim is to
destroy the Israeli state. Yet, until 2013, EU member countries, led
by France, refused to list Hezbollah as a terror organization.
Then, following a deadly Hezbollah attack in Bulgaria, in which five
Israelis tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed, the EU,
again spearheaded by Paris, created an absurdity - it made a
distinction between Hezbollah's "armed wing," which
it added to its list of terror organizations, and the "political
movement."
The move is as credible as bifurcating the Nazi Party or ISIS. And so
it remains to this day, even as six EU member countries -
Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Slovenia
- and the United Kingdom have laudably acted on their own to end
this charade.
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Finally, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the EU is
quick to criticize Israel publicly, but rarely speaks out about
Palestinian obstructionism, corruption or incitement, including at
times via EU-funded NGOs. The lame argument is, "we expect more
from Israel."
Like (most) EU member countries, Israel seeks to live by democratic
standards and the rule of law. But, alas, it has different neighbors:
Syria is not Sweden, Iran is not Ireland, Hamas is not Holland and
Gaza is not Germany.
To add insult to injury, the EU-Israel Association Council, the formal
body charged with ensuring regular dialogues and identifying areas of
cooperation, has not met since 2012. The blockage is politically
motivated and comes from the EU side, driven by the opposition of
certain member countries - including, reportedly, France and
Sweden - to Israeli settlements and policies toward
Palestinians.
Let me be clear. I do not believe that Israel is entitled to immunity
from criticism because of Holocaust memory or a surge in antisemitism.
I write as a friend, who has said more than once that the EU is the
single most ambitious and successful peace project in modern history.
And I write as a fellow EU citizen, having accepted Austrian
citizenship last year in honor and memory of my father, who was denied
that citizenship as a Jew in Vienna in the 1930s.
But if the EU is serious about tackling antisemitism and preserving
historical memory of the Holocaust, it cannot neglect, minimize or
wish away threats to the existence of Israel, the world's lone
Jewish-majority country and home to nearly 7 million Jews.
The EU often complains that Israel does not trust Brussels or offer it
a role in any unfolding peace process. A look in the mirror might
offer an answer why.
David Harris is the CEO of American Jewish Committee (AJC). Please
join 76,100 others and follow him on Twitter @DavidHarrisAJC.
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